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Music Cafe features old faces and new next week

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 7:57 PM Sunday, June 21, 2009

HAMILTON — Jeremy Francis has been playing the Music Cafe since the very beginning, and next week will make his 10th (or so) appearance in as many years.

“My father and I even went down and helped them set up the sound for the first Music Cafe,” Francis said. “Since then I’ve played by myself, with my father, with my father and my uncle and with multiple bands,” including short-lived ensembles like Radio Bloom and Imagination Station.

In fact, his very first solo public appearance was at the Music Cafe.

“I remember that they gave me a bottle of water and I had to turn my back on the audience to drink it because my hands were shaking so hard.”

Although he’s a full-time medical technician, pursuing music as a career is still his pipe dream, he said. He performs regularly at area clubs, including upcoming gigs at Pier 27 in Ross Twp., and has been invited back to the Poppy Mountain Bluegrass Festival for the second year in a row, this time playing all three days at the Eastern Kentucky event.

Francis said that he plans to play a mix of original tunes and covers, and he’s always open to the obscure request.

Kevin Loving will be making his first Music Cafe appearance next week after coming out of his self-imposed musical retirement.

“The last band job I had was in 1990, the Route 4 Band,” the Hamilton native said, “which was pretty much a flash in the pan.”

But lately he’s been getting back on the circuit, playing at Ryan’s Tavern last weekend for the Taft High School ’70s reunion and several appearances at the Riverbank Cafe.

He said he’ll being doing mostly cover songs, but songs that don’t get played a lot.

Also on Tuesday’s bill are some folk/rock/country tunes from Roy Bushman, solo cello music by Michael Ronstadt and one of Music Cafe’s popular regulars, the Circle of Rhiannon Belly Dance Troupe.